Here's a quick roundup of everything that's happened over the past few weeks.

New software releases

NetSurf 2.8

Version 2.8 of the NetSurf browser was released last month. The major new features in this release are a new cross-platform system for handling frames and iframes, and an improved image cache.

Charm 2.4

Peter Nowosad's Charm programming language also saw a new release last month. Version 2.4 is the first version of the language to be 32bit compatible, so if you're looking for something a little bit different from your programming languages then now's a good as time as any to give it a go.

StrongHelp 2.86

A new version of StrongHelp was released to the StrongED mailing list, featuring several bugfixes, mainly for ARMv7 compatability. Download it here.

CDFaker now 32bit

Steffen Huber has released a 32bit version of Andy Armstrong's CDFaker utility, which allows you to mount ISO images and read their contents via CDFS. Apart from being 32bit compatible, this release is also fully ARMv7 compatible.

InterGIF 6.18

Martin Weurthner's popular InterGIF utility has also seen an update. The main focus of this release was to make the utility ARMv7 compatible.

DigitalCD updates

Music player DigitalCD and related modules (TimPlayer, DiskSample) have been updated to add support for more tracker music formats, along with a few bugfixes.

New C/C++ tools release

And last but not least, RISC OS Open have released version 22 of the C tools package. The main development focus for this release was on improving objasm, to add support for the full ARMv7 instruction set, and to add support for some features offered by the assembler available in ARM's RealView package (which has a shared heritage with objasm and the other 'ROOL' tools).

RISC OS 5 news

OMAP4 ROM now available to download

As mentioned in the previous news roundup, Willi Theiss has been working on porting RISC OS to TI's OMAP4. This work has now found its way into ROOL's CVS, allowing them to add a (Pandaboard-compatible) OMAP4 ROM image to the downloads page. However as this is a first release, expect to see a fair number of bugs and missing features.

Raspberry Pi port on the cards

Veteran developer Adrian Lees has expressed an interest in porting RISC OS to the low-cost Raspberry Pi computer. Previously the possibility of a port was put into doubt by the question of whether anyone would have access to the required hardware documentation, but since Adrian works at Broadcom alongside Raspberry Pi Foundation members it sounds like lack of documentation will be the least of his issues.

Bounty pot reaches £1K

The amount of money available to developers through the ROOL bounty system has now reached £1000. However none of the bounties have yet hit their (secret) target values, so it looks like any budding programmers will have to wait a bit longer before they're able to take on any of the tasks listed (unless they want to do it for free!)

Correction: As has been pointed out by ROOL, bounties don't have any target funding values. Instead, interested parties merely need to get in touch and say that they're starting work once they feel that the money in the pot has reached an acceptable value. For more info on the workings of the bounty system, see here.

Filesystem bounties

On the subject of bounties, developer Rob Sprowson has recently had a go at analysing all the different filesystem wishlist items and boiling them down to a list of defined bounties, which can be found here. It's probable that this list (or something close to it) will be adopted by ROOL and added to the bounty area of their website in the near future. Not to be content with just making a bounty list, Rob has also had a go at fixing a few filing system bugs recently, mainly focusing around making sure FileSwitch and the filer are happy with files between 2G and 4G in size, as well as fixing a couple of bugs in RPCEmu that stopped large files from working there.

London show approaching

And finally, this is your official reminder that the 2011 RISC OS London show is here in just under two weeks time, on the 29th of October. Apart from the usual names on the exhibitors list it's worth pointing out that there'll be a pre-release version of the Raspberry Pi board on show. And if Adrian hasn't got it running RISC OS natively by the end of the show, it sounds like the RPCEmu team will be there with a copy of the RPCEmu emulator as a fallback. Unfortunately one notable absentee from the exhibitors list is RISCOS Ltd, who are unable to attend due to a clash with another commitment.

Message #119199, posted by helpful at 19:57, 23/10/2011, in reply to message #119157

Member
Posts: 184

In other show news, there will be a charity stall this year. So this is your chance to pass on some old stuff for a good cause, or find that rare cherished item you've been looking for! The stand can accept any Acorn/RISC OS hardware or software, but not CRT monitors or x86 PCs.

The Charm programming language was mentioned in the article, and its author Peter Nowosad will be at the show to encourage you to give it a try, and giving a presentation in the theatre demonstrating how to create your first program.

And let's not forget that this is the first time the ARMini has been seen darn' sarf'! Well, unless you saw mine at ROUGOL

Message #119200, posted by pwx at 21:18, 23/10/2011, in reply to message #119199

Member
Posts: 227

In other show news, there will be a charity stall this year. So this is your chance to pass on some old stuff for a good cause, or find that rare cherished item you've been looking for! The stand can accept any Acorn/RISC OS hardware or software, but not CRT monitors or x86 PCs.

The Charm programming language was mentioned in the article, and its author Peter Nowosad will be at the show to encourage you to give it a try, and giving a presentation in the theatre demonstrating how to create your first program.

And let's not forget that this is the first time the ARMini has been seen darn' sarf'! Well, unless you saw mine at ROUGOL

I might come down to London for this show. I notice from the website that there will be parking for attendees. Not being from London, I have to ask the potentially silly question - is this venue in the congestion charge area?

Message #119206, posted by helpful at 02:34, 24/10/2011, in reply to message #119205

Member
Posts: 184

And let's not forget that this is the first time the ARMini has been seen darn' sarf'! Well, unless you saw mine at ROUGOL

It was at the South West Show in March.

Ah, my mistake, I thought Wakefield was its first appearance.

Regarding parking - there is a rugby match at Twickenham this Saturday which will make the hotel much busier than previous years, so parking availability will be very limited. I suggest you familiarise yourself with the location of the alternate parking listed on the website.

Message #119210, posted by pwx at 14:32, 24/10/2011, in reply to message #119206

Member
Posts: 227

Regarding parking - there is a rugby match at Twickenham this Saturday which will make the hotel much busier than previous years, so parking availability will be very limited. I suggest you familiarise yourself with the location of the alternate parking listed on the website.

What time's the match, and how early do rugby people turn up to grab the parking spaces?

Message #119212, posted by VincceH at 19:39, 24/10/2011, in reply to message #119206

Lowering the tone since the dawn of time

Posts: 1583

Regarding parking - there is a rugby match at Twickenham this Saturday which will make the hotel much busier than previous years, so parking availability will be very limited. I suggest you familiarise yourself with the location of the alternate parking listed on the website.

Well, I'm arriving on the Friday and, as an amazing feat of being sensible, this year I haven't foolishly agreed to be at any clients' offices on that day, which means I'll be there earlier. So with luck I'll beat any rush for parking space in the hotel car park.

Message #119242, posted by caliston at 19:07, 31/10/2011, in reply to message #119157

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Posts: 5

Re: RISC OS and RaspberryPi boardThere's now a QEMU emulator of the RPi in Ubuntu for anyone who can't or doesn't want to get hold of the hard-to-get hardware:

That's just an emulator of a random ARM11 platform. It isn't terribly interesting for RISC OS, because it has completely wrong peripherals compared with those found on a real BCM2835. It's fine if you want to test Linux apps on an ARM11 platform, but no use for anything lower level than that.

Every time, without fail, somebody posts a set of pictures taken at a London show, I appear in at least one of them. It's reached the proportions of a sort of bonus 'Where's Wally?'-style puzzle in each set.

Message #119247, posted by diodesign at 23:03, 31/10/2011, in reply to message #119242

The Opposition

Posts: 269

Re: RISC OS and RaspberryPi boardThere's now a QEMU emulator of the RPi in Ubuntu for anyone who can't or doesn't want to get hold of the hard-to-get hardware:

That's just an emulator of a random ARM11 platform. It isn't terribly interesting for RISC OS, because it has completely wrong peripherals compared with those found on a real BCM2835. It's fine if you want to test Linux apps on an ARM11 platform, but no use for anything lower level than that.

My apologies, Theo - I thought it was at least a sane representation of the RPi board, rather than a generic ARM11 core emulation. Still, might be useful for the odd osdev tinkering until I get my hands on one of the RPis.

Message #119251, posted by trevj at 11:26, 1/11/2011, in reply to message #119245

Member
Posts: 660

[...] sort of bonus [...]

Martin, I tried to catch up with you later on in the afternoon but you were talking at the R-Comp stand and then I lost you completely. I wanted to apologise for not answering your questions particularly well. Anyway, I'll try to include an FAQ and brief progress report on the WikiProject at some point, which should provide some clarification. Thanks.

And sure enough, there I am, barely visible, but definitely chatting to Vince M Hudd.

I was looking through my photos last night, editing some so that they are passable enough to use in a show report (which I have now had a chance to make a start on). I'm sure you will be pleased to read that you don't (AFAICS) appear in any of them.

This may or may not be connected with the fact that most were taken before the show actually opened.